Friday, June 18

6/17 Repeat Customers and A Question for the Bartenders

Sometimes it becomes clear that no amount of negative reinforcement is going to induce a regular shitty tipper to change their ways. I don't know if it's just that they don't notice they're getting shitty service or if they just like cold pizza, but there is one guy who orders weekly (or more) and always pretips a dollar. I've gotten stuck with him two weeks in a row. Last week, I forgot his soda. I'd taken his order first because unfortunately the guy lives in a location that's rather convenient to the store. I had two more deliveries in the car. He ordered two 2 Litres of soda to go with his one pizza and order of wings. I mistakenly took only one soda. It was going to be more than an hour before I could get back (time to take both other delivers + time to get back to the store + time to catch more deliveries because I'm not leaving the store with just his soda). I ended up not taking him his second soda.

This week I get assigned his order and was pretty apprehensive about how the delivery would go down. I didn't know if he would call me out on it or just let it go. I went out of my way to take his delivery second. I'll be damned if he ever gets first delivery from me regardless of how convenient his apartment is. My planned excuse was, "Oh! I'm so sorry, I must have misunderstood. I thought you told me you didn't need me to go get the second one since it was going to be an hour before I could get back." It turns out the planning was unnecessary. Here's how the delivery went down (approximately):

Shitty Tipper: Hi!
Me: *glare, hand him receipt* I'll just need you to sign the top one, the bottom one's yours.
Shitty Tipper: Ah! I see you remembered both sodas this time.
Me: Yup *hand him pizza*
Shitty Tipper: Have a good evening.
Me: *mumble, mumble, walk away*

Ok, other things. I'm tired of thinking about that asshole. I'm sure he'll be back next week.

  • Delivered to a YMCA.
  • Delivered to the Mary Kay training ladies again who always order their pizza cut party style which is still a ridiculous way to cut pizza and they still only tipped $1.50.
  • Delivered to an inebriated guy with a really thick Indian accent. He was at the local sports bar. It took forever for the bar to be quiet enough for the bartender to call the name over the loudspeaker (it's a rather large bar with two indoor seating areas, a patio, and a bar section). I don't know how other drivers deal with delivering to the bar, but I don't walk around looking for the person who ordered. I think it annoys the bartenders that I make them call the name over the overhead. I know they're busy, but I see it as a professional courtesy for me and a customer service thing for their customer (they do list our number on their menu just for the purpose of drunkards being able to order pizza to the bar). For me (and the customer) it's a million times more convenient for me to stay in one place rather than risk missing each other by virtue of moving in different directions or someone else claiming their pizza. Drunk people are manipulative and while I do my best to make sure it gets to the right person, if I'm walking by someone and they flag me down and say the pizza's for them, I'm not going to ask for ID to prove it. Alternately, if I'm asking everyone if they're John (or Mike, Steve, Jennifer, Betsy, etc) it's bound to take me forever to find the right one and a good risk that someone's going to claim the pizza without it being theirs. Calling the name over the loudspeaker helps with that. I did end up tipping a dollar to the bartender because she broke a $20 for me (though I didn't appreciate her rolling her eyes when I got her attention to do so. I'm trying to do a job here as well!)
Bartender/former bartender readers. Am I looking at this wrong? Should I be doing something different to achieve my goal of getting the customer the pizza with a minimum amount of inconvenience/confusion?

I made $57 off of 12 deliveries.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

As a former bartender and delivery person I'd say call them from a block away and have them meet you at the door. If they don't answer call a few more times from the parking lot. If it's busy enough to need help from the bartender good luck, they are the only sober people in the place besides you and they have to stay and deal with the drunks. You are probably the only person they will see all night that they don't have to pretend to be nice to so...
Well, here in VA bars have to sell food at all times so I seldom get orders there and always use the "outside food/health violation" excuse to make them come outside.

Unknown said...

Jamie: It's funny, I didn't even think about calling the customer and making them come outside. I guess it's because I usually only call customers if they aren't answering the door. I'll definitely try that next time.

Colombo said...

Hiya, great blog! I worked as a pizza delivery driver so I can relate to your stories :). While there created this Pizza Box Robot Monster entirely out of the "cut-off" pieces from pizza boxes. Hope you like it.